A marker indicates where Charles Lindbergh landed his biplane in Peoria prior to his trans-Atlantic flight. (PHIL LUCIANO/JOURNAL STAR)

Before the world knew the daredevil pilot “Lucky Lindy,” Peoria knew a mail carrier named “Slim.”

On April 15, 1926, Peoria saw its first mail run, a St.Louis-to-Chicago stopover. The pilot, a then-anonymous Charles Lindbergh, griped about the weather in the wild blue yonder: “It was bad all the way from St. Louis.”

Lindbergh touched down at Peoria’s first airport, Kellar Field (sometimes called Brown’s Field, as it was located on the former Brown farm). That area is now the site of the High Point Subdivision. There, along High Point road at High Point Lane, a tiny park sports a plaque noting, “Near this marker, Charles A. Lindbergh landed his DeHavilland Biplane on the St. Louis-Chicago mail run 1926 to 1927, prior to his trans-Atlantic flight.”

That’s mostly right, says Bob Keenan, historian and gardener at the Peoria airport. The owner of Kellar Field, Alexander Varney, opened a new airport in August 1926, then northwest of Peoria — a site now centered by Dick’s Sporting Goods at the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. Most people called it Big Hollow Airport, though Varney simply referred to it as “Field No. 2.” Regardless, after that airstrip opened, Lindbergh began dropping off mail there — as Kellar Field shut down.

On May 22, 1927, newspapers all over the world carried headlines of a former air mail pilot who arrived in Paris — the first solo, nonstop trans-Atlantic flight.

As for the lingering, sad-sack story of the City of Peoria snubbing its nose at Lindbergh regarding an overture to sponsor “The Spirit of Peoria”? Poppycock, apparently. However, in his autobiography, Lindbergh wrote that his first daydreams of transatlantic trip filled his head after a departure from Peoria.

2 Comments

Lindbergh flew his plane parallel to the Osage Orange trees in our backyard. These provided a flying guide and wind barrier. There is part of a gate in our yard that was the entrance to a maintenance area for the planes.
This came from Dr. Clarence Ward and told to him by Mr. Rutherford. Dr. Ward said the plane landed where the marker is in our neighborhood as it was the highest point.